An election system is disclosed that may include different systems for performing different functions of an election held by an organization having members. For example, one system may perform member registration, and another system may perform the actual election services. In some examples, one or more systems may be precluded from having certain respective member information.
An election system may be used to provide voting by an established group, such as a member-based organization. Further, an election system may use data processing systems and communication with the voters. For example, data processing may be provided by computerized systems, and communication between system components and personnel may be performed electronically, such as through the use of wireless or land-based (wired) telephone systems and/or computer systems, including local or wide-area networks, such as the Internet and world-wide web.
Elections for member-based organizations (for example, labor unions) may be conducted through a mixture of on-site, mail-in paper, and electronic (including, but not limited to, telephone and Internet) voting processes. Electronic voting methods may have reduced cost and complexity compared to the other two methods, and may provide audit trails that may be used to detect abuses of the voting system.
To support such auditing, existing electronic voting systems allow both a voter's identity and the content of that voter's vote to be accessible by computer operators that have direct access to tables in a database containing the voters' identities and the content of their votes. However, labor unions are required to conduct elections in conformity with the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. Compliance with the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act is determined by the U.S. Department of Labor, which regulates elections. The Department of Labor may determine that a method of voting may be unacceptable if it allows any single individual to link a voter's identity and her vote.
References disclosing voting-related apparatus, systems and methods include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,218,528, 5,412,727, 5,821,508, 6,081,793, 6,550,675, 6,769,613, 6,950,948 and 6,873,966, and U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2001/0037234, 2002/0077885, 2002/0133396, 2002/0138341, 2002/0158118, 2003/0154124, 2003/0159032, 2003/0208395, 2003/0212593, 2004/0046021, 2005/0216332, 2005/0211778 and 2004/0117244, which references are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety for all purposes.